Butterfly Wings
by Hell-Blazer-47
Summary: ~*ImPoRtAnT uPdAtE*~ Please read Chapter 4!
1. 'She thought it would be fun...'

She thought it would be fun. Especially since the Muggle boy had never talked to her before.   
  
Hermione was sitting on her eloquent wrap-around porch doing what Grangers did best: Read. This book just happened to be the updated version of Hogwarts: A History.  
So she was obliviously lost in its golden pages when a deep voice interrupted her.  
"Excuse me?"   
Hermione looked up pulling down a pair of reading glasses to lay eyes upon -by far- the handsomest boy ever. His hair was dish water blonde with sandy highlights. The eyes were set back in his face making their blue depths look even more mysterious. And how lucky this boy just happened to be her next door neighbor Elliot.  
"Elliot! May I help you?"  
He smiled. How absolutely breathtaking. Hermione, with her unbounded interest piqued, book marked her page before standing to greet him.  
"I couldn't help but notice you sitting over here. My friends and I were going to a party in Conrad. I was wondering if perhaps you would to join us."  
His voice was like silk and had a slight French accent. Hermione smiled. She usually wasn't so confident. Especially around the muggle boy. But something in his tone made her more thoughtful. She looked past him to the car where two other Muggles were waiting: a girl and a boy.  
"I would love to. Let me go get ready and tell my mum."  
  
Would she have left with them if she would have known the consequences? Most likely not. But Hermione did....  
  
  
"Elliot are you alright?"   
Elliot and his friends were hanging to each other laughing and taking with slurred words. A beer bottle half empty sloshed around in his loose grip.  
"Of course! We're going for a drive. Wanna come?"  
Hermione had nothing to drink. She had politely declined and settled for a simple soda. Not many others had made the wise decision she had. Elliot was one of them.   
"Elliot are you sure you should be driving?"  
"Of course! I'm fine!"  
She knew she should have taken the keys away. She knew. Why didn't she? The car started and lurched forward. Maniacal giggles filled the small space of the car as Hermione got in the frontseat. She could have gotten a ride from someone who had not been drinking. But she didn't...  
  
The smell of alcohol made her stomach flip over in her body. It invaded her senses and gagged her of fresh oxygen. The girl in the seat behind her, known as Fran, was shoving a bottle of Jack Daniels in her face spilling some of the contents on her new blue blouse.  
"COME ON MIONE DARLING! TAKE A DRINK!"  
She quietly said now and pushed herself up against the car door. She was sitting next to Elliot who was laughing and not watching the road.  
"Elliot maybe you should watch where you're going."  
He turned a vehement glare on her. Taking a hand off the wheel he began to jab a finger in the air at her.  
"Now Mione. I know how to drive. My driving is fine. Right Fran? Isn't that right Ted?"   
Mumbled answers came from the two who were busy snogging each other in the backseat.  
"But you've-"  
"Been drinking? That ain't nothin! I-"  
Sirens appeared in the rearview mirror. Hermione's stomach lurched along with the car's speed. No! Not now! What would her parent's say when they found out she had been in the car with a bunch of teenage drunks?  
"Maybe you should pull over."  
"Maybe you should shut up, Mione!"   
The police car kept following them speeding up to match the car's speed. Hermione watched as the scenery charged by. Deep, deep down she knew something...something was going to happen...  
  
The curve was there. Elliot never saw it as he was too busy looking behind him at the pursuer. Hermione saw it. She saw it looming ahead of her and she began to pray.  
  
'Please God. Please forgive me for not being more forceful...please....please...I don't want to die...'  
  
  
The car, a small economical car, broke through the guard rail. It sailed over the ground before landing nose first on the steep incline. Hermione hadn't been wearing her seat belt and flew from the car window on the first impact. She landed unconscious on the rocky ground while the car fell directly over her. She was lucky...  
The hood came crashing down upon her legs mangling them and tearing the bones inside apart. Blood began to coat the ground while staining her white skirt and the brand new blouse. Beside her lay the bottle of Jack Daniels broken. The alcohol was mingling with the redness on the soil. Together they carved a path in the dirt to the flaming heap of metal, rubber, and human flesh still tumbling down the hill.  
  
The officer parked the car quickly and leapt from the vehicle. The trusty flashlight at his belt was handy and held close by his head for better visibility. He passed the form of a girl on the ground but quickly recoiled and checked her pulse.  
It was barely there. By the look of her legs the car had come down on them. She was lucky the vehicle had not come down on her.   
While he hurried down the incline he radioed for immediate assistance. The car in front of him was on his roof. The wheels were still turning on their axels. Blood was running in rivers out of the car. Tangled bodies - or rather body parts - were laying on the roof of the car. The flesh was red stained by the owner's own veins.  
  
  
  
Mrs. Granger watched happily as Hermione trotted off to the car. Elliot Sanders was such a nice boy. It was about time Hermione got up the confidence to agree to a date with him.  
The woman watched the car drive off. Then she turned back into the house. It was empty seeing how Darrel was still at work.   
  
Now, only a few hours later, she was rushing off to the hospital clutching a rosary in her fist as if it were the only sign of life. Her entire body was shaking as she mumbled prayers over and over.  
Darrel had called her not the hospital. They had called him first at his office. He was able to get there faster.  
Tina watched the road with blurred vision.   
  
'Oh...Hermione....please don't die...' 


	2. 'Hermione will never walk again...'

Tina Granger sat down in the small office next to her husband whom's hand she was tightly gripping. The doctor before her was busily writing a few notes down but quickly put it to the side.  
She looked young with a childish face full of mirth and short black hair cropped and spiked. Her bright blue eyes usually sparkled whenever she saw the couple.  
Dr. Renee Phillips usually had good news to report to the Grangers on Hermione. 'She's such a healthy girl.' was the usual response.  
  
Today, Renee's eyes were dim and her face looked slightly older. Darrel looked downwards and to his wife. Her hand was trembling. The veins were visible making her hands look rough and gnarled.  
"Darrel, Tina. I'm not going to sugarcoat this and give you false hope. Hermione was severely injured. We had to replace most of her leg bones. Luckily, the ground she was in was muddy from that monsoon weather we just had. It saved her from further damage but not much."  
Tina closed her eyes forcing back tears. Somehow she knew what was coming next.  
  
  
"Hermione will never walk again.."  
  
  
Tina let out a wretched sob covering her mouth with her free hand. Grief washed over her flooding her senses with pain. Pain for her darling baby who just went out to have a good time.  
Darrel reached over and brought his wife into his arms. Silent tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes down under the ridge of his golden glasses. They became lost in his greying beard. Renee watched feeling incredibly horrid as the couple wept.  
Tina turned her tearful gaze on Renee searching. "What about phsyical therapy? Or some sort of exercise?" Renee shook her head.  
"The bones in her leg are made out of metal. That's just to keep her leg intact. If it had been worse, We would have had to amputate. However medical science has come a long way. I don't believe she'll ever walk again. Even if she tries it would be very painful."  
Darrel nodded accepting it though it was hard. Tina would not be swayed.  
"But-"  
"Honey..Let's go back to the room. Thank you Renee. For saving our daughter's life."  
  
( 1 MONTH, 2 WEEKS LATER)  
  
Hermione sat in the wheelchair staring out her hospital window. She was dressed in a long skirt and a comfortable sweatshirt. Snow had begun to fall even though it was only September 13.   
She didn't want to go back. She didn't want to face Conrade again. The penetrating stares of her annoying and nosy neighbors. Anything but..  
"Hermione, leaving?" She didn't turn. She knew who the voice belonged to. The nurse, Isabele, who had been with her through long and painful nights and days when her parents had not been.  
"Yes Isabele. At noon..My parents are taking my things down." Isabele smiled and walked into the room. She stood next to the wheelchair staring out at the soft snowflakes cascading over the trees and the parking lot.  
Numerous cars had pulled in and left. All were going home..All were walking..  
  
The elevator ride usually made her smile. Today it felt no different. Her face was molded into a constant mask of icy breezes. The cold brown eyes watched nothing as her father pushed the wheelchair out of the elevator into the lobby.  
"Stop." Hermione's voice was quiet at first. When her father kept pushing her She became angry and clenched her teeth.  
"Stop!" The wheels stopped turning. Darrel, in his tan leather jacket and dress pants, ran around the front.  
"Did you forget something Mione?" The name brought back horrible memories. Memories of the handsome Muggle boy with the drunken voice and the smell of alcohol.  
Her fingers, pale and gaunt, gripped the iron bar around the wheels. She glared at her father pushing back the empty tears straining to be released. She hadn't cried since Dr. Phillips and her parent's told her softly in a dim lit room she could never walk again. Could never run with Harry and Ron to Hagrid's Hut to speak. Could never head swiftly to the library through her secret tunnel. She hated them for it.  
"Get out of my way.." The wheels pushed her forward. They were her legs now. So she pushed her arms forward and forward over and over again until she reached the door.  
  
Darrel watched his daughter angrily speed towards the door whereupon she went out to the Honda Civic. Tina watched with pity in her eyes as Hermione required her help to make it into the backseat. He looked odd standing in the hallway watching the site. People stared increduously but none moved or asked what was the matter.  
She shouldn't look at her like that, He thought. Hermione will get angry and downright ornery, if Tina kept giving her this treatment and those looks. The looks like Hermione was dead and devoid.  
  
"I don't want to go back." Her strained voice rang out through the silent car. Tina looked to Darrel before reaching around to stare at her daughter. Hermione's cold eyes bore into her skull glaring at her.  
"What?"  
"I don't want to go back. To Hogwarts." Tina nodded and settled herself back into her seat. Darrel's gaze settled on his wife. He stared at her as if she had grown two more heads. With a vehement vengeance, Darrel slammed on the brakes sending his wife and daughter flying forward. The car manuevered to the side of the road aghast to the horns blowing in annoyance.  
Darrel turned in his seat watching his daughter's shocked and angry face. "Listen young lady. Just because your legs are dead doesn't mean you are. Your going back to Hogwarts if I have to drag you in by your hair. That's final."  
  
(2 WEEKS LATER)  
  
She glared at the suitcases piled by the door and the large trunk with Crookshanks and her new owl, Capri, set next to it. Her father had just started the car which was heating. She hated him most of all for forcing her to do something she detested.  
Tina held out a cup of hot chocolate to Hermione but she just waved it away. A foul mood and hot chocolate just did not mix.   
She was wearing a long plated skirt that went down to her mary-jane feet. The short Uniform skirt wouldn't do. Her mangled, scarred, and stitched legs were not for public viewing. Never. The cloak was bundled for the extra warmth. She would desperately need it.  
In her thin hand She clutched three letters. All from Harry. They were demanding asking why she never wrote him back. Did something happen? What was going on?   
"Get ready Hermione. I'm done packing your things." She looked to where her belongings had been. Sure enough. Her father usually always made quick work of things.  
"Fine." Wheeling over to the fire place which was raging in inferno, She threw the letters in watching the paper curl and turn a menacing black. The fire radiated in her eyes and her very soul comforting her, consoling her achine spirit.  
  
"I can't believe this. It's too soon."  
"Be quiet Tina. DO you want her to stop living for Christ's sake? Your already pitying her enough. Now say goodbye." Tina glared at her husband as he bundled in his long trench coat.  
"I don't think you should force her into this."  
"And what made you the perfect therapist all of a sudden. Now saw your god damn goodbyes Tina. Her friends will help her more than we can. You know that and I know that."   
  
She watched her house dissapear in the blizzard of snow. She missed the warmth by that fire. The smoke billowing out of the chimney.  
"It'll be a cold winter. Starting to snow in September already. So..Hermione, what classes d'ya got this year?" She refused to answer him. The man sentencing her to damnation.  
The rest of the trip was in silence. Soon, her fate lay before her in the form of the London Train Station. 


	3. 'Are you going to sit there staring at m...

A/Note: Wow! Usually I have these on every one of my chapters. O well. ANGST WARNING! I get really deep into Hermione's mind throughout this story. She's really OOC but I think that's justifiable. It'll be a while before Chapter 4 rears it maniacal head because I will be showing my horse at County Fair Wednsday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Which results in ZERO time to write. So bear with me. If I'm quick I might just have chapter 4 our tonight.  
Oh and I don't own Harry Potter/Affiliates of Harry Potter. This is just my twisted, angsty mind. ^-^ Oh...BTW this takes place in seventh year  
  
  
  
  
"I sent a letter via Capri to Dumlberdeal, er Dumerdolt, what's his name again Hermione?" Hermione rolled her eyes. She was sitting here freezing outside the train station while her father jabbered on and on about Dumbledore and his name pronunciation. However her anger, still fresh, kept her from responding. She just sat still immobile.  
"Er..Anyway Hergurd, eh..Hagirdi? Some Groundskeeper is assisting you with your baggage. Here why don't you carry Crookshanks, you know how the old bastard loves to sit on your lap." Hermione glared at the cage. That seemed to be her favorite pasttime. Glaring at things. Making things wilt under the intense scrutiny She loved it. She trhived on it.  
"So we're to meet him at Platform 9 and 3/4 at.. Jumping Johosephats! We're fifteen minutes late! God damnit! You'll have to-" His voice was lost as Hermione wordlessly wheeled to the entrance and dissapeared in the sea of people.  
"It's a good thing I know where the platform is Mione!"  
  
Initally Hermione was carrying enough money to buy a train ticket back to Udale which was the town next to Conrade. However before she could wind the bulky wheelchair through the unwavering crowd a large hand gripped her shoulder.  
She couldn't face him or them. She couldn't wheel up to them in this chair and watch as they effortlessly walked beside her. But she turned anyway.   
  
Hagrid couldn't believe how empty, how lifeless her eyes were. The used to sparkle with a light that was unmistakenable but still unplaceable. Now they were dull, dark..  
"H-Hermione?" He asked in deep voice. She nodded. Now Hell lay before her..  
  
Her father pushed the trolley behind Hermione and Hagrid. She didn't speak to him either which made him feel bittersweet. It pained him she wouldn't speak to him. He knew she had been through a traumatic experience. But he refused to see her kill herself even more than she already had.  
"Well here we are. Rest assured Dr. Granger she'll be boarded with the utmost care." Darrel had never met Hagrid but already he liked the giant of a man.   
"Thank you Hagrid." Before he could falter, Darrel shook hands and walked swiftly to his daughter.  
"Write often sweetheart. We'll respond. If you need anything at all let me know." Hermione barely registered his words. She turned her head to him.  
"I want to go home.." With that final admission She wheeled her chair forward into the Platform and straight into a crowd of people.  
  
At once a hushed whisper went over the group of girls to her right. A flaming red head had her hand over her mouth tears forming at her eyes. She pushed through the girls to the wheelchair.  
"Mione?" The name ran through her like a bolt of lightning. Everything that name had been through was horrid. She didn't want to remember that name.  
"Don't call me that.." She whispered recognizing the girl as Ginny Weasley.  
"Hermione? Is that you?"  
"Of course it's me. Who else would it be? Charlie Chaplin!?" Already her cool disposition was fading as the increasing number of stares wrenched through her heart like a corkscrew. She hated their eyes upon her and her legs.  
  
Ginny gasped at Hermione mean outburst. She turned back to her friends, Cynthia Wallis, Miranda Daget, and Sasha Randall, with a wide eyed horror they could not place.  
"I wonder what happened to her?" Cynthia asked putting her hands into the pockets of her cloak. "She was awfully rude. Isn't that one who always hangs out with your brother and Harry?"  
"Yeah..." Ginny turned back to the retreating figure a cage dutifully in her lap. The thin arms looked as if they would break if any pressure were to be put on them. The equally thing figure made the wheelchair look like a large recliner the kind you can sink into to.  
  
"C'mon Harry stop pacing. I'm sure she has a good reason for now owling back." Ron ran his hand through his longer hair blue eyes watching Harry move back and forth before the train.  
"It's not like her. Why didn't she owl? When I see her-"  
"Honestly! Your both paranoid!" Lavendar and Parvati appeared behind them. Lavendar's hair had once been blonde but now it matched her name. The purple locks were silky and shining standing out against the black robe. Parvati's hair was still black but green streaks wound it's way through the plaited strands.  
"Wow. I mean..Erm..Have you seen Hermione?"  
"No. But I saw Cynthia Wallis with Ginny. Ginny looked like she had just seen a-" Parvati stopped as her eyes wound past Ron and Harry back to the thin skeleton of a girl sitting in a wheelchair. Lavendar followed her friend's gaze becoming equally awed.  
"Hermione??"   
  
She held her breath when she saw the two familiar figures. The cold look had not disappeared for she would be damned to let them see the pain welled up in her.  
They were talking to Lavendar and Parvati or rather Lavendar and Parvati were talking to them. But it all changed when she wheeled out of the crowd behind her friends.  
When they turned She wanted to cry. Just the looks they gave her like she was a child uncapable of doing anything withered her battered soul even more.  
  
"Well..Are you going to sit there staring at me or are you going to say hello.." 


	4. Author's Note - Please Read!

Hello,  
  
  
  
I know you're probably going to hate to me for this but I feel I must discontinue this story until further notice. I have been using my friend's computer to post chapters and she is still as compliant as ever allowing me to use up her memory..Thanks Sammie! However a recent tragedy in my family will take me away from this story as well as you for an unconcerted amount of time. I am sorry for any inconvience I have caused to anyone however it is in my, as well as my family's, best interest I cease and desist. Thanks for all who reviewed my story and who enjoyed it. If anyone would like to take this story under their wing and make it their own please feel free. You have my ultimate consent and I hope you get the same response I did.  
  
Thank you in more ways than one,  
  
Lorial  
  
P.S.: Thanks Sammie for helping me out a great deal with this story. Hope your DBZ story is a success. 


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